The UPSA Centre for Peace and Security Research has held a four-day Certificate course in Terrorism and Violent Extremism in Africa to raise awareness on the emerging threat of terrorism in the sub-region.
The goal of the course is to equip participants with skills to identify early signs of terrorism planning and deploy measures to prevent terrorist attack in Ghana.
Participants also gained insight on how to collaborate with security agencies in Ghana in preventing terrorism and violent extremism.
Speaking at the opening ceremony, the Dean of the School of Graduate Studies, Dr John Kwaku Mensah Mawutor underscored the need for all organizations in critical sectors of Ghana to be abreast with the trends of terrorism and violent extremism in Africa and create awareness at all levels in their organizations to compliment national efforts in preventing terrorism in Ghana.
For his part, the Coordinator of the Centre for Peace and Security Research of UPSA, Mr. Kasambata Yaro said terrorism and violent extremism continue to be major threats in the sub-region which require the collaborative effort of state and non-states actors to prevent and moderate their impact.
Adding, the activities of malign actors in the West African sub-region such as neighbouring Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Cote d’Ivoire, Mali and Niger, where the activities of terrorism have been felt in recent times underscore how imminent the threat of terrorism in the Sahel region can metastasise to countries along the coast such as Ghana; awareness and preventive measures continue to be one of the effective tools to mitigate the phenomenon.
Mr. Kasambata Yaro therefore encouraged more organizations and individuals in Ghana and the sub-region to subscribe to the certificate course in future to enhance their knowledge and understanding of the phenomenon to effectively join in the awareness creation and prevention efforts.
High profile experts who served as resource persons to the course were Maj. Gen. (Dr.) Emmanuel Kotia, National Coordinator of the Ghana Boundary Commission; Lt. Col. Larry Gbevlo-Lartey, Esq., Former AU Special Representative on Counter-Terrorism Cooperation; Capt (Dr) Kamal-Deen Ali, Senior Lecturer at UPSA; and Dr. Albert Antwi-Boasiako, National Cybersecurity Advisor.
Others include personnel from the Ministry of Communications and Digitisation, Ambassador William Kanyirige, Former Ambassador of the Republic of Ghana to Ethiopia and Rev. Dr. Johnson Mbillah, Former General Adviser to the Programme for Christian-Muslim Relations in Africa (PROCMURA).
Participants were from the Petroleum industry, Communications and the security and intelligence agencies.
